


[why are you laughing]

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: [to see you there] [23]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Natasha's Psychological Expertise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 00:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4120441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The air outside the building feels sharper, lighter than before she went in, but she knows that's elation, adrenaline, endorphins and relief. A <i>lot</i> of relief. She's been relieved to be wrong before; she's even been more relieved to be wrong than she is now. But not often. It makes the feeling familiar, lets her account for it, but she lets it carry her along anyway, lets it make her steps quicker and lighter, almost skipping: it only makes her less noticeable, makes her look like a woman happy to go out, and the happiness gets explained by her heading to the car that pulls up to the curb alongside her, so she can get in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[why are you laughing]

**Author's Note:**

> Immediately post her off-page confrontation with Bucky at the end of [your blue-eyed boys: 1 (someone's bound to get burned)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1690700).

Natalia's neck hurts, her shoulder aches where Barnes wrenched her right arm around, and her hip is going to be badly bruised. She barely feels it. 

Outside of the condo, in the hall - ushered with heavily ironic mock-politeness - Natalia heads to the stairs to go up to the roof. She retrieves the jacket she left there and pulls it on, zipping it closed; she pulls the tie out of her tight braid, shakes and finger-combs her hair loose, and turns herself back into just another woman no one need look twice at, as she takes the stairs down to the ground floor and goes out the main entrance. 

The air outside the building feels sharper, lighter than before she went in, but she knows that's elation, adrenaline, endorphins and relief. A _lot_ of relief. She's been relieved to be wrong before; she's even been more relieved to be wrong than she is now. But not often. It makes the feeling familiar, lets her account for it, but she lets it carry her along anyway, lets it make her steps quicker and lighter, almost skipping: it only makes her less noticeable, makes her look like a woman happy to go out, and the happiness gets explained by her heading to the car that pulls up to the curb alongside her, so she can get in. 

She drops into the seat; it jars her shoulder enough to make her wince. And she says, brightly, "That went well." 

Relief is sharp and loud in her head; that's probably why it takes her fractions of a second longer than it might otherwise to notice the look Clint's giving her. It's level, and steady, and his mouth is tight. And there are other things, in the exact set of his jaw, and the lines beside his eyes, and after a short mental skip Natalia remembers, or maybe realizes, or maybe both, that she probably just scared the living shit out of him. 

Well. Barnes did. And she did. They did. The thoughts try to skip away in turn, unruly, and Natalia hauls them back into some kind of order. She clears her throat and tries briefly to look contrite, because she has the vague sense that she should be, and should definitely not start laughing. 

"For the record," Clint says, very mildly, "if you could avoid getting isolated on the other side of a concrete pillar where I have no _shot_ while deliberately antagonising a super-enhanced assassin who also has psychotic episodes _and_ who you've just pissed off by breaking into his house and then basically insulting him, in future - I'd really appreciate it." 

Natalia clears her throat again and presses her lips together briefly against the smile. "You sound like Coulson," she points out, in her own mild, helpful voice. Clint takes a deep, slow breath. She adds, "I'm sorry." 

Clint gives her an appraising look and says, after a beat, "No you're not. You might be sorry _later_ , but right now you think it's hysterical." 

That's . . . a fair point, Natalia has to admit, but she also has to counter with, "You'll probably think it's hysterical later." 

" . . .true," Clint has to admit in turn, slowly. "But right _now_ I'm still trying to shake off the sting from you shaving that fucking _decade_ off my life. I'm already almost one ahead of you, Nat, and men don't live as long as women, you're gonna be _sorry_ when you're sixty." 

"If you want me to tone down the amusement," Natalia notes, "you're not helping." When he slowly rests his forehead on the steering wheel she adds, "He wasn't actually going to kill me. He was making a point." 

"I know that _now_ , Tasha," Clint says, patiently. "I _didn't_ while I was having a fucking _heart attack_. This," he adds, turning his head slightly while she works hard not to laugh at him, "makes us _even_ for the year after New York, okay?" 

Putting on her seatbelt, Natalia almost agrees. Then she stops, considers, frowns and shakes her head. "Not for Rio," she says, and scowls back at him when he scowls at her. "I wasn't _trying_ to get myself killed," she says, knows her voice hardens a little bit even though she doesn't mean to. Clint closes his eyes and sighs. 

"Okay, fine. Everything _else_ ," he says, sitting up. He adds, "Are we done?" When Natalia blinks at him, he gestures towards Steve's building. "Do you have secret in-room knowledge or can I just interpret you being so fucking cheerful as meaning you heard the same thing I heard and we're now pretty sure Steve Rogers isn't going to end up decapitated with half of him on his own roof and the other half hanging from his window?" 

"You need a drink," Natalia observes. It's a certain value of _need_ , admittedly - more, a drink'll help it take less time for him to calm down from this. 

"I need a lot of drinks," Clint replies. "I'd also love an answer to the question." Natalia suppresses another smile. 

She's maybe a bit over-giddy, but frankly she doesn't get that many opportunities to be dialled up because of something _good_ , something that makes her _happy_ , so Clint's irritability aside she's not in a hurry to actually stamp it down.

"Yes," she says. "We are now satisfied that Steve has never been physically safer in his life, and any psychological wreckage the end result of his own stubborn determination, from which no one could deter him." 

"Okay, good," Clint says. "One, I'm not actually sure what that little determination-slash-deter-him speech thing is called, but it was awful and you should be ashamed. Two, you still have a nice dress hidden somewhere within an hour's drive?" 

Natalia considers, running through inventory in her head, and then says, "Yeah, the Willows apartment." 

"Right," Clint says, still sounding grumpy. " _You_ are higher than a preteen on cocaine-laced Pixy Stix, and _I_ want a bunch of drinks, so _we_ are crashing Stark's party." 

That actually sounds like a fantastic idea to Natalia, and he's not wrong: she's been carrying this, all the concern and fear and preemptive sorrow balled up and compressed and tangled up with her own shit, the things there's nothing to do with but wait for them to scar over, all laced through with hope she tried not to look at - carrying all of it for months. And now she gets to let it go, all at once, and it is making her high. It's . . . nice, actually. 

Losing doesn't bother her. She _remembers_ the ease with which the Winter Soldier'd thrown her off, thrown her into the car: that much, she's already incorporated into how she thinks of the man Steve's so attached to. And Clint's fear aside, the risk she took had been minimal. If Barnes had wanted to kill her, he wouldn't've bothered finding out why she was there, and he'd been clearly lucid when Steve left: he was only going to kill her if he wanted to. 

Everything had been for show, from letting her know he knew she'd come in the window to the conversation to the attack - even bothering to _make_ a show had been for show. And she'd seen everything she needed to. More than she'd hoped for. 

Up against the wall she'd said, _You did enter the picture trying to kill him,_ meaning Steve, keeping her voice casual and calm and pushing further, probing at what Barnes was showing. The layers and layers of it. Because this, this anger, this was the anger that covered insult, affront, wholly territorial and sharp. She'd been looking for more and he gave it to her. 

_For which you should be eternally fucking grateful,_ he'd almost snarled. _Because if it hadn't been me you'd both be HYDRA's fucking war trophies and they_ might _just have decided to take you alive, Romanova._

Not that she hasn't thought of that, before. 

He'd said, _Amnesiac and brainwashed I was better at saving his life than you were, and you haven't answered my question, Nashenka - even if I was a threat, what the_ fuck _were you going to do about it?_

So much affront, so much anger, she'd almost started laughing in relief right then, had to throttle the smile when - after she acknowledged, _Not much, apparently_ \- he'd let her go and stepped away. 

Said, _Don't worry about whether I'm a threat to him, Romanova. Worry about what happens if I decide_ you _are._

Maybe someday she'll be able to explain why that led to this, led to lightness. Led to knowing she wouldn't have to _fucking lose_ one more person and let them go because they make their own choices. How the words not only staked out the territory he clearly meant to, told her what he wanted her to hear, but pieces she didn't think he'd think of. 

Like that fucked up or not - and he is, fuck knows she's been watching the place for ten days and Barnes is a fucking mess she only hopes she never has occasion to be - he's seeing enough, understanding enough, to remember how to threaten when threatening's pointless, when threatening's a warning that isn't about making it clear how willing you are to kill someone, but rather how much you don't want to have to. 

Like that he cares enough about who and what Steve cares about to have spent some time thinking about her name and the shapes it could make. 

Maybe someday. There are a lot of _maybe someday_ thoughts in her life, but she's comfortable with that. She shakes it all off and asks, aloud, "Are we calling ahead, or are we actually crashing?" glancing at Clint. Who looks a bit less of a storm-cloud by now, and also looks thoughtful for a moment. 

"Feel like throwing a grand socialite tantrum in the Tower lobby?" he asks. 

Natalia thinks about it, and replies, "That sounds amazing. Don't call." 

After a moment another thought occurs to her and she asks, "Do you actually know what a preteen on cocaine-laced Pixy Stix is -" 

"I _was_ one," Clint interrupts. Glances at her to make sure she knows he's serious, and then says, "Once. And no, I did not lace them. That was one of the other kids. This would be one of those reminders," he adds, "that my childhood was only normal compared to _yours_." 

Natalia laughs out loud, this time.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] why are you laughing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4449119) by [echolalaphile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/echolalaphile/pseuds/echolalaphile)




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